In Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Ann-Margret, in only her third movie (her first was Pocketful of Miracles in 1961), was experimenting with that “good girl/bad girl” persona as had Rita Hayworth many years before, quickly becoming the dream girl of men and boys alike. The director of Bye Bye Birdie, George Sydney, was very much taken with the young actress. So much so, in fact, he proposed the idea of her now legendary opening and closing sequences to the studio heads at Columbia and when they balked, he paid for the studio time as well as the crew’s additional wages out of his own salary… and as the story goes, a star was born… Ten Things To Know About Bye Bye Birdie.